Buzz for the Oscar favorite began back at the 2011 Cannes film festival, and it’s been raking in award nominations ever since. By Kara Warner Jean Dujardin and Missi Pyle in “The Artist” Photo: The Weinstein Co. In a day and age where it seems as if everything and everyone in Hollywood is consumed by the latest and greatest cutting-edge technology, the fact that a black-and-white silent film set in the late 1920s/ early 1930s is dominating the Oscar conversation at the moment is surprising, to say the least. “The Artist” is a legitimate silent film — there is no dialogue! — that revolves around the relationship between George Valentin (Best Actor nominee Jean Dujardin ), a matinee idol in Hollywood before the dawn of talkies, and aspiring actress Peppy Miller (Best Supporting Actress nominee B
